AfD ban: MPs in the Bundestag lead emotional debate

A ban procedure against the AfD remains controversial in the Bundestag. With an emotional plenary debate, it was shown that disagreements sometimes go across the individual parties. The CDU MP Marco Wanderwitz emphasized that the German state could no longer bear the AfD “without being irreparable in the long term”. His party colleague Philipp Amthor, on the other hand, warned of the danger that the AfD warned itself in the event of a failure of the procedure “a democratic seal of approval that you are not entitled to”.

Wanderwitz is the initiator of a group application cross -faction, which more than 120 parliamentarians have joined. You want the Bundestag to apply for a ban on parties to the Federal Constitutional Court. Critics consider such a procedure to be rushed a few weeks before the new election of the Bundestag.

Therefore, there is another application that is borne by numerous Greens MPs. This is initially provided for an expert opinion in order to check a possible unconstitutionality of the AfD. Renate Künast said as the applicant’s spokesman, even if the protection of the constitution classifies the party as extremist, this does not yet meet the criterion of unconstitutionality that is required for an application procedure.

FDP parliamentary group deputy Konstantin Kuhle was even more skeptical. He said that many people are already alienation to the institutions of liberal democracy. This development would not be ended by a ban procedure, but also reinforced.

The AfD parliamentarian Peter Boehringer naturally described the demand for a ban on his party as absurd: “Of course, the AfD is nothing more in its entire broad than the violation of the principle of democracy.”